Limit Breaks in GURPS

kdtipa · 01-11-2012, 11:13 AM

Hello all,

I'm in the process of building a world setting for a campaign I plan on running... probably starting in February at this point. The basic idea of the setting is real-world Earth about 200 years into the future. I'm cherry picking technological growth. I'm also including Psionics as the primary way to differentiate the main characters. After all, in the real world, most people don't have a reason to go on adventures, and psionics make for a nice hook.

In my campaign, the psionics are done using the 3e design... power categories with skills you can get to use that power in different ways. I like it better than the 4e psionics that seems to be basically: each skill from 3e is an advantage in 4e. Sort of. Anyway, I don't like the 4e way of doing it... but that's not why I'm writing this post. I just told you about my choice of how to handle psionics because it might be relevant to the question I intend on asking.

The last piece of info before asking my question is to describe "limit breaks". In Final Fantasy VII, your characters had something called limit breaks, where after you took enough damage or dealt enough damage, a gauge would fill up, and you could then use an extremely powerful ability. The idea as I understand it is that the character had just reached their limit, and they unleash whatever rage, adrenaline, determination in a big powerful move.

There are two pieces of that puzzle: "what causes the gauge to fill" and "what can you do when you get there". So my question is: How would you implement a limit break system in GURPS? I kind of want to do something like that for my campaign.

The way I see it in my head, if my players' characters are getting along well, and would care about each other, and example of a situation that would cause the limit break option to be available would be seeing one of their friends fall in combat. Basically... situations that I as the GM would consider highly emotional situations that make the person snap and act in a more powerful way.

I know that this could be sort of emulated by players who roleplay really well. Seeing one of their friends go down in combat, might make the player react strongly and suddenly decide to start taking all-out-attacks on the foe that downed the PC. I would definitely award points for roleplaying that well. But I think I want another game mechanic effect of those high strung situations... especially something that could interact with the psionics.

So yeah: How would all of you implement something like this? Would you stick with normal rules and just teach your players to use the other combat options more often? If you did use something like the limit break from FFVII, how would you model the gauge building up to a point where the power could be used? How do I create a mechanic for "reaching one's limit" or do I leave it as GM fiat? What would the power be? Maybe just double power level for a psionic power? A big strength boost (massive adrenaline surge). Free "high pain threshold" for a few rounds?

01-11-2012, 11:13 AM	#1
kdtipa Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Southern New Hampshire	Limit Breaks in GURPS Hello all, I'm in the process of building a world setting for a campaign I plan on running... probably starting in February at this point. The basic idea of the setting is real-world Earth about 200 years into the future. I'm cherry picking technological growth. I'm also including Psionics as the primary way to differentiate the main characters. After all, in the real world, most people don't have a reason to go on adventures, and psionics make for a nice hook. In my campaign, the psionics are done using the 3e design... power categories with skills you can get to use that power in different ways. I like it better than the 4e psionics that seems to be basically: each skill from 3e is an advantage in 4e. Sort of. Anyway, I don't like the 4e way of doing it... but that's not why I'm writing this post. I just told you about my choice of how to handle psionics because it might be relevant to the question I intend on asking. The last piece of info before asking my question is to describe "limit breaks". In Final Fantasy VII, your characters had something called limit breaks, where after you took enough damage or dealt enough damage, a gauge would fill up, and you could then use an extremely powerful ability. The idea as I understand it is that the character had just reached their limit, and they unleash whatever rage, adrenaline, determination in a big powerful move. There are two pieces of that puzzle: "what causes the gauge to fill" and "what can you do when you get there". So my question is: How would you implement a limit break system in GURPS? I kind of want to do something like that for my campaign. The way I see it in my head, if my players' characters are getting along well, and would care about each other, and example of a situation that would cause the limit break option to be available would be seeing one of their friends fall in combat. Basically... situations that I as the GM would consider highly emotional situations that make the person snap and act in a more powerful way. I know that this could be sort of emulated by players who roleplay really well. Seeing one of their friends go down in combat, might make the player react strongly and suddenly decide to start taking all-out-attacks on the foe that downed the PC. I would definitely award points for roleplaying that well. But I think I want another game mechanic effect of those high strung situations... especially something that could interact with the psionics. So yeah: How would all of you implement something like this? Would you stick with normal rules and just teach your players to use the other combat options more often? If you did use something like the limit break from FFVII, how would you model the gauge building up to a point where the power could be used? How do I create a mechanic for "reaching one's limit" or do I leave it as GM fiat? What would the power be? Maybe just double power level for a psionic power? A big strength boost (massive adrenaline surge). Free "high pain threshold" for a few rounds?